Why did Hitler decide to invade russia?

Answer 1

Hitler spoke of the inevitable battle of philosophies (fascism vs. communism) and races (Germanic vs. Slavic) for decades and wrote about the coming war between Germany and Russia in Mein Kampf and other places. Much of the early war was setting the stage for the final meeting of the totalitarian philosophies (Poland was split between the two, Germany wanted to secure the western front with France and England before invading Russia) which was viewed by Hitler as the main battle of his great war.

Of course, Germany was not able to destroy or disable England (which would have discouraged the Americans for getting involved, he felt) and thus attacking Russia opened up a gigantic second front and eventually stretched the Germans to breaking point. The great, inevitable struggle became Hitler's downfall.

The frightening thing is how close Russia was to collapsing as the Germans rolled towards Moscow. They very nearly won.

AnswerThe main reason for Operation Barbarosa was to give Germany living space to expand. Hitlers plan was to make the Slavs living in Russia (up to the Urals at least) 'disappear' except for the ones he kept around as servants for the new German residents he would send in to colonize. The plan was to send in German far families after the war was won who would have alot of kids who would be able to supply the German army with millions of new recruits in the future. AnswerAdolf Hitler needed more resources for its hungry machines. Germany has a small area, with little supplies. USSR(Russia) was rich in oil and other resources, Germany needed that resource to continue the war. Also, if Hitler wanted to control Europe, he must take down USSR, it was the largest country in Europe as well as the world. AnswerHitler wanted land in the east for the German people to expand into and settle on. He regarded Slavs, like the Russians, as inferior subhumans. Therefor he thought there was absolutely nothing wrong, indeed it was the right of the German people, with invading Russia, enslaving or exterminating the population, and settling Germans on the empty land. He also thought that the inherent superiority and racial purity of the German people would make it easy to defeat the inferior Russians. AnswerHitler believed the Bolsheviks were a cause of Germany losing WWI. And Hitler also thought that if he was able to defeat Russia, that Britain would succumb to the power of Germany and surrender. AnswerThe invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was a result of several things. Firstly, Hitler regarded the Slavic population as 'untermensch' or sub-human, and believed that the Aryan German race should have 'living space' or lebensraum in the East. Moreover, Hitler believed, as with many other leading Nazis, that Germany's defeat in WW1 was a result of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy, and that the threat of this needed to be purged. Thus, as a communist nation, the USSR was a likely target for invasion. AnswerHitler always hated the USSR specifically, because he detested Communism. His plans to invade were revealed as early as 1924 when he wrote his political testament, "Mein Kampf". The specific timing is probably as a result of the early German successes in the war: Hitler got over-confident. AnswerBoundless expansion in Russia had been Hitler's dream ever since 1918. AnswerAll of the current answers do not reflect the new information that has come from the Soviet archives and the German archives that the soviets took back to Russia after WWII.

There is much new information that has come from Russian historians that have searched these archives and painstakingly documented what really happened and are now trying to set the record straight.

There are reams of evidence that Stalin was less than 2 weeks from invading NAZI occupied Europe and it was Stalin's intention to take the whole thing. Hitler knew this. He also knew that the Russian war machine was decisively better equipped for offensive operations and many times more powerful than the German army tank for tank.

The personal reasons that Hitler invaded are also true but the only hope of survival for the Nazis and was a preemptive strike on the Russian army which was all bunched up at the border and poised to invade with no defensive plans or training.

The evidence is overwhelming and I will not be argumentative or disparage any of the other answers. They are also true but only tell a part of the picture.

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The information about a planned preemptive Soviet strike comes almost entirely from Victor Suvorov, who defected to the West in 1978. There's this strange notion that because he was a defector had privileged knowledge of Soviet history. In fact the information that he 'revealed' was already in the public domain at the time.

After the fall of France in 1940 the Soviet general staff opted for 'forward defense' but the proportion of troops based near the western frontier of the Soviet Union was nowhere near enough what would have been needed for a preemptive strike.

I wonder of the person who is making these claims above can name a couple of respected historians of World War 2 who support this claim.

Note the following comment from the Wikipedia article on Suvorov's Icebreaker :

"Summarizing the western scholars' opinion on IcebreakerHugh Ragsdale concludes that the book is "generally considered discredited" by now, whereas Jonathan Haslam notes that Suvorov's claims "would be comical were it not taken so seriously".

Answer 2

Be believed that Germany was overcrowded and, especially, did not have enough land to produce enough food for itself. He also believed that Germans were inherently superior to toher peoples and that Russians were particularly inferior people, mere sub-humans. Thus he saw it as perfectly OK to take their land, exterminate or enslave them, and settle Germans there.

Michael Montagne

He eventually wanted to take over the world

Answer 3

ANSWER.

Hitler's war was base don trying to get the British to join him and have an Aryan master empire or forcing the British to surrender. Hitler had full access to ALL Soviet raw materials, including oil. The Soviets supplied 80% of all materials the Nazis used in WWII.

The Battle of Britain was in Hitlers view the end game. If he won the war was over as Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Arab world would have been on his side. After the decisive victory of the British air force Hitlers heart was broken. He knew the war was lost, simply put he could not win.

His attack on his greatest allie, Stalin, was more to do with his scorching earth policy than any military gain. He wanted to kill as many German and allied troops as possible before the inevitable defeat and his own death.

The BOB led to the unwinable and irrelevant invasion of the Soviet Union. Even if Hitler had won his army would have been weaker and in a worse position than before.

As I said ALL raw materials from the Soviet Union were available to the Germans without the need to invade.

Hitler attacking Russia

Hitler's main war aim was to create "lebensraum" or living space for the expansion of Germany. The need for "lebensraum" was described by him in his book "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle)published in the 1920's. Hitler believed that the place for this expansion was to the East of Germany. For this reason he invaded Poland in 1939 but first had to deal with France and England, who came to Poland's aid, to the West in 1940 before attacking Russia to the East in 1941.

Germany had a Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union. This gave Stalin a strange sense of peace and respect for Hitler. Hitler, however, was not so peaceful. He, and his military advisor's knew that the oil in the Soviet Union would be very necessary if Germany was to continue fighting for a long time. Hitler decided to try to take care of the Soviets before the US entered the war.

Answer 4

Yes he did and he didn't take into account Russian winters. His troops went into Russia unprepared to fight in winter or to fight the Russians. There was hand to hand combat in places like Stalingrad and the Russians took many Germans as POW's. His main purpose for attacking Russia was for the oil. His massive war machine was in need of more gas and oil supplies.

Answer 5

because he could